


A Week in Paradise

by sans_patronymic



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Briefs Family, Gen, Humor, Summer Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 03:42:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20419337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sans_patronymic/pseuds/sans_patronymic
Summary: It's the Sixteenth Annual Briefs Family Vacation! Bulla has a secret, Trunks gets critical, Bulma has one too many cocktails and Vegeta decimates the local lobster population.





	A Week in Paradise

Bulma was in paradise. Quite literally, with a capital ‘P’. On the private beach of the Paradise Hotel & Resort, draped across a wooden lounge chair, Dr. Briefs watched the black dot along the horizon that was her husband, swimming out past the wave break. The late morning sun reflected off the ocean in a dazzling display that made her grateful for sunglasses. She took a sip from the cocktail in her hand and smiled.

“Mind if I join you?” a voice asked.

“Be my guest.”

“Thanks,” said Trunks, pulling up a chair beside her. 

He set to work carefully arranging his things along the edge: towel, sunglasses, phone, keys, wallet all in a neat row. It always struck Bulma as funny that Trunks had grown up to be such a meticulous person. Tidy, organized. He must have inherited it from Vegeta—heaven knew he didn’t get it from her. He reclined against seat back with a contented sigh. 

“Good pick, Mom. I like this place.”

“Not bad, right?”

“Yeah, I’m glad I came.”

Bulma smiled at her son. “So am I.”

So far, the Sixteenth Annual Briefs Family Vacation was off to a good start. No one had been sunburned, gotten food poisoning, destroyed anything, or been forcibly evicted from a public place. An unprecedented event in the history of the institution. Then again, they still had four more days. Somewhere in the world, Bulma thought, people were probably laying bets about how much longer their good luck would hold out.

As if on cue, a bikini-clad, blue-haired figure came into view, striding across the beach with purposeful steps. Bulla paused at the water’s edge, looking out at her father before turning back towards the hotel. When she spotted Bulma and Trunks, she hurried to them, kicking up sand as she went.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” Bulma said.

“_There_ you are!” Bulla exclaimed in an exasperated huff. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

Trunks couldn’t help but laugh at his sister’s frazzled expression. “This may come as a shock, but most people actually get up and do things before noon.”

“Okay, well, not everyone can be a grandpa who goes to bed at ten o’clock every night,  _Trunks_.”

“Was there something you wanted to talk to me about, sweetie?” Bulma asked.

“Yes! Okay, Mom,” Bulla began, perching on the end of Bulma’s lounge chair with her trademarked ‘Guess Who Wants Money’ face. “Can I have a new phone?”

Bulma raised her sunglasses scrutinously. “What’s wrong with your current phone?”

“Um, there was some... slight breakage... after I  _kind of _ dropped it off the balcony last night.”

“Was this before or after you ‘borrowed’ my ID and snuck into the hotel bar?”

“Obviously after.”

“Seriously?” Trunks said, sitting up to stare at his sweet, innocent, baby sister with disgust. “You’re like sixteen! What the hell? Was the bartender blind?”

“Okay, first of all, Trunks, I’m seventeen. And second of all, I think it’s really a compliment to Mom that she looks so youthful.”

“Aw, for that, angel, I’ll buy you two new phones.” Bulma returned her sunglasses to her face and settled back against her chair.

“Unbelievable,” Trunks scoffed, “I cannot be hearing this. You are so spoiled! If I’d done something like that when I was your age, I would have been grounded for a year.”

Bulla’s eye-roll was world class. “Yeah, I know. And you had to walk two miles in the snow, uphill, both ways, just to get to school.”

“I’m serious. Mom and Dad were way more strict with me than they ever are with you. Mom, you cannot let her get away with this; it’s ridiculous.”

“Trunks, honey, I’m on vacation. I’ve already had two mojitos before lunch. I’m sure I don’t care what either of you do.”

Trunks tried to protest further, but was interrupted. At that moment, Vegeta came sauntering up, dripping wet and smelling of the sea. He tilted his head one way, then the other, trying to shake the water out of his ears.

“Towel,” he commanded to no one in particular. Bulla happily obliged. Once he had it, Vegeta set to work trying to scrub his hair back into its proper place.

“Dad, help me out here,” said Trunks, “Don’t you agree you and Mom were way harder on me growing up than you are on Bulla?”

“Who said that?”

“I’m saying it.”

“Let’s just say your father and I may have learned from our mistakes,” Bulma said. 

“Did you hear that?” Bulla sneered, “Mom said you were a mistake.”

“Bulla! You know that’s not what I meant.”

“You weren’t a mistake, son,” Vegeta assured him, “You were an accident. There’s a difference.”

Trunks scoffed. “Wow.”

“Vegeta! Not helping.”

“And regardless of your mother’s foibles,” Vegeta continued, “I have never treated either of you any differently.”

Bulma laughed, her straw hat bobbing up and down. Of all the lies Vegeta told himself, that was the most absurd. Trunks stared at him, his face serious.

“Dad, remember when I was seventeen and wanted to get a tattoo? You literally told me that if I did, you would flay it off my body and force feed it to me.

“And I still would. An elite should never defile their body with anything so grotesque as a tattoo.”

“Exactly my point: You would never say anything like that to Bulla.”

“Of course I would.”

“All right. Let’s hear it, then.”

Vegeta sniffed, folding his arms against his chest. He turned to his daughter, opened his mouth, then shut it, the words sticking in his throat. Trunks had the audacity to give a triumphant smirk. Vegeta swallowed his guilt and tried again.

“The same goes for you, too, Princess. No tattoos.”

Brother and sister shared a look. Trunk’s smirk turned positively sinister. 

“So, if, hypothetically, Bulla had a secret tattoo that she got last summer and never told you about—“

“Trunks!”

“A really stupid tattoo. And it was in, let’s say, a really... embarrassing place—”

A bottle of sunscreen flew at Trunks’s head and missed. Vegeta turned to his daughter, his eyes narrowing in scrutiny. But it didn’t matter how hard he looked, to him, she would always be three years old, in pigtails, crying over a lost toy. He turned away and scoffed.

“Bulla would never do a thing like that,” he declared.

“Okay, but...  _hypothetically_, if she did have, like, a tattoo of a star on her ass—what would you do?”

“Oh my gods, Trunks, I will literally  _murder_ you.” The fire in Bulla’s eyes said she meant it.

“Children,” Bulma interrupted. “I’m hearing a lot of talking, when all I want to be hearing is the peaceful sound of waves crashing on the shore and the tinkle of ice cubes as the strapping cabana boy refills my cocktail.”

“Hmph. What cabana boy?” Vegeta asked.

“You, dear. You’re my cabana boy. Go get me another one, please?”

Bulma rattled her empty glass expectantly. With a sigh, Vegeta took the glass from her and started back towards the hotel.

“Bulla, sweetheart, go with him and figure out what we’re doing for lunch, hm?”

“Sure, Mom.”

“Oops—tattoo-check!” 

Bulma gestured to the blue lines peaking out from the edge of Bulla’s bikini bottom. Once the fabric had been properly adjusted, she gave her daughter the thumbs-up, watching as she slipped off after her father. Whatever would they do with her?

“I guess I should go in and change,” Trunks said.

“Nuh-uh. I gotta talk to you. Sit back down.” Bulma pulled herself upright. The sunglasses came off and she waved an admonishing finger in Trunks’s face. “Now, look, I’m a little drunk, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take what I’m about to say seriously. You’re right; we were harder on you than we are on Bulla. And I think you’re right to be pissed off about it.”

“Mom—“

“Let me finish! When you were born, I wasn’t much older than you are now. Imagine if you had a kid, right now, with someone that you honestly don’t even know that well. In fact, you’re already doing better than I was—I still lived with my parents. I wasn’t really ready to have a kid. And your dad certainly wasn’t ready. And we were one thousand percent Not Ready to have a kid  _together_.  ... But, I’m glad we did. I know things were tough for you, especially when you were young, but I’m really proud of the person you are, in spite of us.”

Was love with a side of guilt a Briefs family specialty? Or did everyone's parents know the recipe? Trunks shook his head with a sigh.

“I’m not trying to say you guys were bad parents."

“I know. But we put you through a lot of shit that you shouldn’t have had to deal with and I really regret that. And Vegeta... he got there eventually, but it was a long and painful process. I think that’s why it’s so important to us, especially to him, that we do things differently with your sister.”

“...I think you guys may have over-corrected a bit.”

“Oh, your father  _definitely_ over-corrected. At this point, I’m just running damage control. ”

Trunks had to laugh at that. He picked up his keys and fiddled with them idly, unsure what to say. Bulma reached over and gave his shoulder a pat.

“Don’t worry about your sister,” she said, “Bulla’s going to learn her lessons her own way. Or, she won’t and we’ll have two uncontrollable tyrants in the family.”

“Eh, you’re not so bad, as tyrants go.”

“Rude! I was talking about your father.”

“You mean your cabana boy?”

“If he seems tame now, it’s only because we both put in a lot of blood, sweat and tears.”

Trunks shrugged. It was hard to imagine his dad in his thirties. He could remember Vegeta’s temper being much worse, how difficult it was to get his attention, how little he smiled back then. But Trunks also remembered the pride he felt in how his father spoke to him: directly, as if they were equals. None of the patronizing baby-talk his mother’s family used, no tip-toeing around uncomfortable truths, no bullshit. If you failed, he told you so, and if he said you succeeded, you knew that you had.

“I don’t know if Dad was all that terrible to begin with,” he declared.

“Sweetheart, the first time your father ever told me he loved me, you were already a year old. And it was our wedding day.”

“Wow. That’s fucked up.”

“Well, your dad’s a pretty fucked-up guy. But I like him.”

“So do I,” Trunks said and then added, “You don’t think he’s, like... flipping out at Bulla about her tattoo right now, do you?”

“Oh, please. Wherever your sister’s concerned, his mind is just like a big field of rainbows, flowers, and kittens. I don’t think he’d believe the tattoo existed, even if he’d watched her get it.”

“I guess you’re right.”

Mother and son shared a smile. The day was heating up. Out beyond the sand, the ocean stretched wide, beautiful and cerulean. Their silence was peaceful, if short-lived.

“We’re back!” Bulla announced, plopping onto a lounge chair with a sigh, glass in hand. She maneuvered the straw to her mouth with comedic inefficiency and took a long sip.

“Finally!” Bulma said, “I‘m starting to feel feelings again. Where’s my drink?”

“Here,” said Vegeta, handing it over.

“Thank you... _Ugh_—No—Send this back, it tastes like water.”

“It is water.”

“Why would you give me water? And... why is Bulla drinking my mojito?”

“She’s not. That’s  _my_ mojito.  _You_ are cut off until after lunch. Now, drink your water.”

“Really? You don’t trust your wife to know her own limits, but you gave a drink to our teenage daughter?”

“Chill out, Mom. Dad said I could have one sip.”

Apparently, Bulla’s definition of ‘one sip’ was half a glass.

“Bulla has not been sitting in the sun for three hours, dehydrating,” Vegeta pointed out.

“This is so unfair,” said Bulma.

“That’s exactly what I’ve been saying!” Trunks exclaimed with an exasperated wave of his hands.

Bulma stood up with a decisive huff. The beach spun slightly to the left. Vegeta may have had a point about her needing to be cut off. Indignantly, she took another drink of water.

“That’s it,” she announced, “after this vacation, everyone’s grounded.”

“You can’t ground me,” Trunks said, “I’m an adult.”

“And I’m your husband.”

“I don’t care! We’re all grounded. You, me, the cat, everybody. We’re all just going to... stay home and reflect on the poor decisions we’ve made.”

“Pretty sure that’s just called ‘life’,” quipped Trunks.

“Oh!” Bulla said, suddenly remembering, “the hotel guy said that if we don’t start our lunch in fifteen minutes, then they can’t guarantee they’ll have enough lobsters for us, ‘cause that’s when the buffet opens and they only have a hundred lobsters today.”

Vegeta pulled a shirt on and declared: “I am going to eat one hundred lobsters.”

“Why do you get all the lobsters?” Trunks asked.

“Because I’m your father. And I’m faster than you.”

“Wanna bet?”

As the two men disappeared in a streak of light, Bulma patiently collected her things, as well as Trunk’s wallet, keys, phone and sunglasses. Tidy, yes. Organized, yes. Forgetful? Also yes. She started toward the hotel and faltered. Rum plus sun, she reflected, may not have been the genius equation she’d thought it was.

Jovially, Bulla linked arms with her mother. If she was only doing to keep Bulma upright, Bulla was too gracious to let it show. All the same, Bulma appreciated having something steady to lean against.

“Mom?” Bulla asked as they walked. “Do you think I should get my tattoo removed?”

“I think it’s your body and you have to decide what to do with it.”

“What happens when Dad finds out?”

“At this point, the only way your dad is going to know about it is if you tell him yourself. Even then, I don’t think he’d get _that_ upset—certainly not enough to flay you.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“This drinking thing, though. That’s over.”

“Okay, Mom.”

“I mean it. No more rotting your beautiful brain cells, or I’ll tell Dad all about those ‘study sessions’ with what’s-his-name.”

Bulla’s face grew beet red. 

“What’s his name again? Carly? Charlie?” Bulma asked.

“Okay, enough! I already agreed, sheesh.”

"Yeah, but what's his name? Carson?"

“And we only ever kissed, like, once!”

“I think it was more than _once_," Bulma pointed out, but left it at that.

She slipped her arm around Bulla’s waist, hugging her to her side. Trunks had a point about them letting Bulla run wild. But, it was difficult to look at her daughter and not feel seventeen again. She was so vibrant, so alive. At least Bulla wasn’t running around the desert by herself, hitting children with her car and getting kidnapped by thieves. Never mind whatever war crimes Vegeta was committing by that age. Maybe ‘wild’ was just in their blood.

“Mom?”

“Hm?”

“Am I really grounded when we get home?” Bulla asked.

“Why? Do you want to be?”

“Well, it’s just... if I _am_, there’s some other stuff I wanna tell you about. But if I’m _not_—“

“Bulla Eschalotte Briefs, are you trying to strike a plea bargain with your mother?”

“Obviously.”

Bulma had to give her points for originality. 

On the dining room terrace, the two Saiyan princes were laying waste to the victims of the lobster pot. Red bits of tails and claws piled higher and higher with each passing second. Bulla snatched a lobster from her brother’s hands while Bulma contented herself with the fried clams.

So far, the Sixteenth Annual Briefs Family Vacation was still off to a good start. No meltdowns, no explosions, no property damage resulting in a lawsuit. Maybe, Bulma thought hopefully, this was the dawning of a new normal. Then again, they still had three and a half days.


End file.
